A/N: Big thanks to the ones that reviewed last chap poohbear123 and finlaure and mel who reviewed the first chap. You too AlphaRomeo25, Donna Q, blarney and chiroho. You have me on alert, which is almost as good as a review, so much luv to you too! To all the lurkers, my muse inspired this chapter especially for you. She's found cliffees inspire the masses to speak. :) -pj
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"DiNozzo."
Tony closed his eyes briefly before turning around.
"Yeah Gibbs?" he asked, not really trying to hide his defensive tone.
"Everything alright?" Gibbs asked, his tone was carefully neutral.
The question threw Tony off and he frowned a little. He'd expected accusations right off the bat.
"Um, yeah. Of course it is. Why wouldn't it be?" He smiled, but dropped it when Gibbs did not seem to be amused.
"Oh, I don't know, I sensed some tension in there," he jerked his head in the direction of the lab and Tony sighed, crossing his arms over his chest.
"That your famous gut telling you that, Gibbs?"
Gibbs raised an eyebrow, "No, my failing eyesight."
"Look, it's fine, okay. Kelly and I are handling it."
"Handling it, DiNozzo?" Gibbs dropped his voice and took another step closer, Tony made great effort not to back down. He couldn't back down on this.
"Yeah Bo-Gibbs," he continued, catching himself before he called him 'Boss'. He wasn't his Boss right now, he was his girlfriends' father. Gibbs noticed the near slip and narrowed his eyes slightly at the change. "We're handling it. And no, you don't need to remind me of what you'll break if I hurt her."
"Good," He paused and tilted his head slightly, "I don't give reminders."
Tony took another deep breath, "I know," he tried to sound reassuring, though the anger he felt building he knew was justified, he didn't allow it to taint his voice.
He couldn't honestly guilt Gibbs for being so protective, he even respected him for it, Tony would be the same way if in the older man's position. Finding out a daughter he'd thought dead for more than a decade was alive and having her thrust back into his life? He was amazed the girl was allowed to leave the house.
Of course, just because he understood didn't mean he had to like it.
"Kelly and I are just having a…a disagreement and…"
"…and it's none of your concern, Dad," Kelly suddenly appeared beside her father and looked up at him determinedly, "and like Tony said, it's handled."
Gibbs didn't look over at her, instead took another half step forward until his nose was inches from Tony's. He held his gaze for a moment and Tony met it head on. Then, rather suddenly, he stepped to the side and entered the elevator.
Tony and Kelly both sagged with relief when Gibbs disappeared behind the lift doors and gave one another uncomfortable smiles.
"Sorry about that," Kelly said, gesturing toward the elevator.
"What? Him?" Tony shrugged, "you get used to it."
Kelly raised an eyebrow with a small smirk.
Tony winced, "okay, okay…so he scares the crap out of me. After seven years, I think I'll survive," he smiled and Kelly laughed softly.
The doors opened once again and they stepped inside without a word. They were halfway to the squad room before Kelly reached over and flipped the emergency stop switch, stopping their ascent and bathing the small room in blue light.
"Whoa, deja vu."
"Tony I," she looked down at her feet, up at him, and then back down again, "about what I said before…"
"Don't worry about it-"
"But I am worrying about it," she bit her lip, "I didn't mean it, Tony. I was angry and tired," Tony raised his eyebrows at her and she smiled sheepishly, "I never said I wasn't tired, just that I didn't have time to sleep," Tony rolled his eyes and she shrugged, "but that's no excuse. I shouldn't have said what I said. I-I'm sorry."
Tony frowned, "never apologize, it's a sign of weakness."
"Not when said to a friend," she hesitated, "or…to someone you love."
Tony narrowed his eyes, a slow grin spreading on his face, "you love me?"
She shrugged and looked away, her cheeks growing hot, "most of the time," she started to reach for the emergency switch to start the elevator again.
Tony stayed her hand with one of his and then hooked a finger under her chin, turning her to look at him. He took her lips with his, they were soft and warm in a way that was now burned into his memory for the sole purpose of torturing him when she wasn't around. Kelly immediately returned the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck to push back against him.
Kelly knew he wasn't going to say it back, at least not at first, and it surprised her that that didn't bother her. If there was anything she'd come to expect from Tony DiNozzo, it was that he did everything his own way and in his own time.
She smiled as he laid his hands on her hips, pulling her closer.
She was certain she could find a way survive the wait.
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"Leave it to the CIA to double encrypt the very information they want someone to use," Abby grumbled. She and McGee had been working at decrypting the information on Kelly's flash drive for the better part of three hours, and so far still had at least four gigs of information to go.
They were all gathered around Gibbs' kitchen table with half a dozen computers, which Abby wouldn't say where she got, spread out between them and a chalkboard against the wall that Gibbs had surprised them all by pulling out from under the basement stairs and setting up for Kelly.
"Well they're just not a very trusting group of people down at the good old CIA," Tony drawled, he was leaning against the wall in the corner with the laptop pulled up on his lap and a cup of coffee beside him.
"Sounds like Mossad," Ziva quipped, seated at the table with McGee and Abby. She sipped some tea lightly and continued going through the files that had already been decrypted, "the third murder was another gunshot wound to the head. A sniper shot, execution style."
"Proffesional," Gibbs scrolled through information on his own computer and glanced at Kelly as she scribbled a few things on the chalkboard.
"Just like Admiral Rollins and the two CIA operatives, Moore and Yankee," she turned to look at Tony, "what about the two that were in Florida? Knifings right?"
"I guess you could call it that," Tony minimized one window on his computer and maximized another, "straight slash of their throats, messy but effective.
"Military precision," Ziva added, raising an eyebrow at Gibbs, who nodded, confirming her suspicions.
Kelly turned back to the board and set her hands on her hips, getting chalk all over the bottom of her black top, "okay, correct me if I'm wrong, but these do not all feel like the same killer. Four were shot by snipers. Two had their throats slashed and three more had their necks snapped," she frowned thoughtfully at the board, "but all were high ranking members of government organizations, none were linked in any other way except that they're dead and there were no witnesses to any of the crimes. These aren't personal."
She turned and looked at Gibbs, who narrowed his eyes, catching her drift.
"They were hits."
Tony tilted his head and jumped to his feet, "Ziva bring up a map of the murders, the locations."
Ziva did so and Tony came to hover over her shoulder, "yeah. Look at that," Tony looked up at Gibbs, "all the neck jobs were on the upper east coast in Boston or less than an hours drive outside. The slashings were in Florida and the shootings were near the DC area."
"Work for hire hitmen. The nearest to the targets were the most convienent to use," Ziva said.
"Great, that's just perfect."
They all looked up, Kelly had turned back to her chalkboard. Her words said 'perfect' but her tone said 'anything but'.
"What is it Kell?"
Kelly shook her head and then turned to look at Gibbs, smiling bitterly, "hired guns? How am I supposed to predict where the next murder will happen if there's nothing to link the previous murders to one another?"
"Well, we'll have to figure out who hired them, yes?" Ziva glanced first at Gibbs, then at Tony.
"Yeah, which is next to impossible since we don't know who they are, who they're working for or what they want. And without a that, I don't know who they'll hit next!" Kelly cursed and slammed the chalk on the table, causing McGee and Abby to jump, who'd been so focused on cracking the code that they hadn't heard the growing tension in Kelly's voice.
"Kelly," Tony started.
"Don't just-" she cut him off and took a deep breath, pressing her dusty hands to her face, "I'm sorry I just…need a second."
Ziva and Tony looked at Abby and McGee and they all turned to Gibbs. His blue eyes watched his daughter carefully for several seconds. Though the stress wasn't good for her, knew she could handle it and turned back to his computer, deciding to give her what she'd asked for. The team followed his lead and returned to what they'd been doing on their own.
Kelly's cell phone vibrated in her pocket and she pulled it out, glancing quickly at the caller ID she rolled her eyes and turned to lean against the wall.
"Gibbs," she answered.
Tony looked up at that and saw a quick smile pass over Gibbs face.
"Dammit! Already?!"
Everyone looked over but Kelly now stood with her back to the room, one hand on her hip, the other holding the phone to her ear where her head was bowed nearly to her chest.
"Alright alright, just," she exhaled harshly and lifted her face, "email me everything you have on him. I want to know where he worked, lived, slept and breathed since the moment he was born until two hours ago," there was a brief pause in which Ziva turned to Tony and raised her eyebrows.
"Oh yes, she's definitely a Gibbs," she said quietly.
Tony nodded his agreement.
"Then find a way."
They turned back to Kelly as she nearly snapped the head off the person on the other end of the phone, "secure fax or encrypted email I don't care. Send it by damn bicycle courier just get me the data," she slammed the phone shut and everyone stayed motionless for several seconds. Kelly took a few deep breaths and then turned to look at the team, her face from her chin to her forehead was beet red, testament to how worked up she'd gotten on the phone.
"There's been another murder," she said evenly, "Another CIA agent. Executive Assistant Director Norman Hayes."
She met each of their faces slowly, biting her lip and Gibbs saw the shutters slam shut behind her eyes, hoping to lock him out of seeing the guilt in them.
"Kelly, there was nothing you could have done," Abby said, and Gibbs knew he was not the only one that had seen it.
She shook her head, "I wish I could believe that, Abbs."
"Why don't you?" Gibbs couldn't help but ask. He knew he should have softened his tone some, but he also knew the way guilt could eat away at a person, and he wasn't prepared to let Kelly go through that.
Kelly looked at him disbelievingly, "Because Dad, if I could've just-just figured this out," she turned back to the chalkboard, scowling at it, "another man wouldn't be dead. That makes ten altogether and I'm still no closer to figuring out why it's happening or when there will be another. And I sure as hell don't know who's behind it," she was practically shouting, and startled them all when she turned to slam her fist into the wall, immediately drawing blood from split skin.
"Alright," immediately Gibbs was standing and he caught her upper arm, "you need some sleep." He'd been resisting the urge to say it for a few hours now, knowing she'd been awake for nearly two days straight and also knowing it wouldn't do him any good. Stubborness was hereditary.
But now he simply wasn't going to accept 'no' as an answer.
"Wait, no," Kelly pulled her arm free and stepped back, "I'm sorry okay. I'm a little stressed but I can't sleep. I have work to do."
"And you'll do it better when you have fresh eyes in a couple of hours," he continued to try and urge her toward the stairs.
"You don't get it!" Kelly snapped, her eyes suddenly blue pools of fire, and the tension in the room tripled, "how am I supposed to sleep now? There's somebody out there ordering hits on high ranking government officials and I haven't even started to make progress on who it is. How am I supposed to sleep when you or Jenny could be next?"
Everyone fell silent and still. Kelly and Gibbs stood toe to toe, McGee and Abby looked like deer caught in headlights, Tony was tense and ready for action and Ziva was just waiting for the shit to hit the air conditioner.
Gibbs was the first to speak, his tone much softer than before, "is that what you're afraid of?"
"It's one of the things on a rather lengthy list but yeah. Like or it or not you two fit the profile of the victims and I-" she stopped short and some of the defiance leaked out of her. She finished in a whisper, "I just don't want anything to happen to you."
Gibbs smiled reassuringly at her and touched her cheek, leaning over to kiss it gently the way he'd done to Abby so many times, "nothing's gonna happen to me, baby."
Kelly was now swallowing repeatedly and she wouldn't look up at him, "I wanna believe you dad but-"
"Then believe me."
Kelly sighed, resigned and finally brought her eyes back up to his. It was the unwavering confidence in them that finally assured her and she nodded.
"Okay."
"Good. Now, you're still going upstairs to get some sleep. You haven't slept in over two days."
"Well neither has anybody else," Kelly immediately protested, gesturing around the room at the coffee that set beside everyone's computer.
"It's different for us," McGee piped up with a small smile. Kelly gave him a look.
"How?"
"We're used to Gibbs' slave driver tendencies," Abby finished, grinning at the glare Gibbs threw at her. But it accomplished it's intended purpose and Kelly smiled.
"You guys are handling me." She informed them with her hands on her hips. Gibbs smirked as Tony stepped forward, taking her hand to lead her to the stairs.
"Bet your cute little ass we are," he said, pushing her up ahead of him. Before he could follow a piece of crumpled up paper hit him in the side of his head and he cleared his throat, "I mean…yes. We are. Ma'am." And he ducked up the stairs after his girlfriend before Gibbs got a chance to reload.
"I better see you're little ass back down here in two minutes DiNozzo," came a shouted warning.
Kelly laughed at Tony's grimace and flopped down on her bed, not bothering to turn her light on since the open window allowed the full moon set the whole room alight.
"He's not nearly as scary as you all seem to think, you know," she said, turning on her side to make room for Tony to sit beside her and hugging her pillow.
"Easy for you to say, he's never slapped you," Tony said, affectionately tucking her hair behind her ear so he could see her face.
"I guess," she grinned, but it came across lop sided as the exhaustion she'd been fighting suddenly grabbed hold of her full force and seemed to be demanding she close her eyes.
With a soft smile Tony leaned down to brush his lips against hers and with the last of her energy reserves, Kelly returned the gesture.
She felt the bed shift with the loss of his weight and his heat and smell left with him.
"Tony?" she said, lifting her head.
"Yeah?" He stopped, halfway from the door and turned to look at her.
"Could you-" she didn't get a chance to finish. The sound of a crack like thunder followed by breaking glass and a rush of air filled the room. Tony fell and she hardly heard his pained grunt as he hit the floor over the sound of her scream.
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TBC - unless, of course, you guys are cool with me leaving it there? ;-P